Friday, May 01, 2009

Cupcakes for the Grown-up Set

My blogging MO seems to be a spurt of posts and then silence. Really I have no excuses other than laziness. And I've even had a decent amount to blog about in terms of both knitting and cooking.

On the cooking front the big one is that I'm getting back into more baking including recently sourdough bread (which will hopefully get its own post). The first up was an attempt to use a ton of limes I had (from a semi-failed attempt to make Cochinita Pibil, which I'll blog about if I ever make a version that is worth writing home about). I had the limes, and felt like baking something sweet, so my mind drifted to the good things I'd heard about the Margarita Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Now, I'm not vegan, and I'm not even a huge fan of tequila, but the idea of vegan margarita cupcakes just warms my heart. So, after a quick google search I found the recipe here.

I ended up making a double recipe, because there were supposed to be 11 people at the dinner and 12 cupcakes for 11 people just seemed wrong. I thought about making 1 1/2 of the recipe (and because there were no eggs, it would have been really easy to do so), but figured that more cupcakes was better than more math. I'm very happy with the decision to double the recipe.

The cupcakes were a big success, the perfect grown-up cupcake. The flavor of the lime and tequila came through so well, but it wasn't overpowering at all. While the cupcakes were a little dense, it was more that they were just very moist (which is a good thing in my book), not dense in a bad way.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the greatest pictures, but here are a few. I tried to do the rimming with green sugar, but it was really messy. I think it would be better with a coarser sugar instead of the sprinkles I had.

I wanted to find little lime candies, but wasn't able to find them last minute (and on Easter Sunday), so I decided to candy some limes for a little extra decoration. They didn't turn out as pretty (or tasty) as I hoped, but they were a cute addition.

I followed the recipe, but used butter for the frosting. I'm not sure if it was because of that, or something else, but the frosting was not as thick as I would have liked, even after adding more sugar than called for (and it was getting rather sweet). Next time (and there will be a next time, these were so good) I'll try to do something to make the frosting a bit thicker.

Really, all I have to say about these is yum. They were just so good. But, if you are looking for other excuses to bake with booze, I also recommend this recipe for Chocolate Whiskey Bundt Cake which I made last year into a pirate cake pan for my FIL's 60th birthday. The picture is not the greatest, I forgot my camera and and to rely on others.